When choosing an Elasticsearch deployment for your organization, understanding the different subscription tiers is crucial for making an informed decision. Elastic offers several subscription plans designed to meet various needs, from small startups to enterprise-scale deployments.
This includes both managed Elasticsearch on Elastic Cloud, or for on-prem self-managed deployments for Elasticsearch support and additional features.
This comprehensive guide breaks down each subscription option, helping you choose the right plan for your use case.
Overview of Elastic's Subscription Model
Elastic follows a resource-based pricing philosophy that's straightforward: you only pay for the data you use, at any scale, for every use case. This approach ensures that organizations of all sizes can leverage the power of the Elastic Stack without overcommitting to resources they don't need.
The Elastic Stack consists of three core components:
- Elasticsearch: The distributed search and analytics engine
- Kibana: The visualization and user interface layer
- Integrations: Pre-built connectors for data sources and destinations
Available Subscription Tiers
Free and Open Source
Best for: Individual developers, small projects, and organizations getting started with Elasticsearch
The free tier provides access to the core Elastic Stack functionality under open source licenses. This includes basic search capabilities, standard visualizations, and essential monitoring features. While limited compared to paid tiers, it offers substantial value for basic use cases and learning environments.
Key Features:
- Basic full-text search capabilities
- Standard analytics and visualizations
- Core data exploration tools
- Basic alerting functionality
- Standard support through community forums
Basic Subscription
Best for: Small to medium-sized businesses requiring additional features beyond open source
The Basic subscription adds commercial features while remaining accessible for smaller organizations. It includes enhanced security, monitoring, and management capabilities that aren't available in the free tier.
Key Features:
- Enhanced stack monitoring and alerting
- Additional security features
- Improved scalability and resiliency options
- Basic machine learning capabilities
- Standard support with faster response times (L2: 4 hours, L3: 1 business day)
Platinum Subscription
Best for: Growing organizations with advanced analytics and security requirements
Platinum represents a significant step up in functionality, introducing advanced machine learning, security, and operational features. This tier is designed for organizations that need sophisticated analytics and enhanced security controls.
Key Features:
- Advanced machine learning capabilities including anomaly detection
- Enhanced security features and authentication options
- Advanced alerting and notification systems
- Data frame analysis for ML workflows
- Fleet management for agent deployment
- Advanced APM (Application Performance Monitoring)
- Comprehensive observability features
- Priority support (L2: 4 hours, L3: 1 business day)
Enterprise Subscription
Best for: Large organizations requiring the full feature set and premium support
The Enterprise tier provides access to all Elastic Stack features, making it ideal for large-scale deployments with complex requirements. This tier includes the most advanced security, machine learning, and operational capabilities.
Key Features:
- Complete machine learning suite including inference and model management
- Advanced security with fine-grained access controls
- Synthetic monitoring capabilities
- Advanced data transformation tools
- Elastic Maps Service with full mapping capabilities
- Elastic Cloud Enterprise and Kubernetes orchestration
- Premium support with fastest response times (L2: 1 day, L3: 2 days)
- Advanced cluster management and optimization
Gold Subscription (Discontinued)
Note: The Gold subscription tier is no longer available for new customers. Existing Gold subscribers will continue to receive support through their current subscription term. New customers should consider Elastic Cloud Gold as an alternative.
Key Feature Comparisons
Machine Learning and AI Capabilities
- Free/Basic: Limited ML features
- Platinum: Anomaly detection, data frame analysis, basic ML exploration
- Enterprise: Full ML suite including model management, inference, and AIOps
Security Features
- Free: Basic security
- Basic: Enhanced authentication and access controls
- Platinum/Enterprise: Advanced security with fine-grained permissions and comprehensive audit capabilities
Observability and Monitoring
- Free/Basic: Standard monitoring
- Platinum: Advanced APM, logs, and metrics with integrations
- Enterprise: Complete observability suite including synthetic monitoring
Support Levels
Support response times vary by tier:
- Basic/Platinum: L2 issues in 4 hours, L3 in 1 business day
- Enterprise: L2 in 1 day, L3 in 2 days
Choosing the Right Subscription
Consider Free/Open Source If:
- You're just getting started with Elasticsearch
- Your use case involves basic search and analytics
- You have internal expertise to manage the deployment
- Budget constraints are a primary concern
Consider Basic If:
- You need commercial features but have a limited budget
- Your deployment is relatively small to medium-sized
- You require some level of commercial support
Consider Platinum If:
- You need advanced machine learning capabilities
- Security and compliance are important requirements
- You're building sophisticated analytics applications
- You require advanced monitoring and alerting
Consider Enterprise If:
- You're running large-scale, mission-critical deployments
- You need the complete feature set including advanced security
- You require premium support and faster response times
- You're implementing complex multi-cluster architectures
Licensing and Deployment Options
Elastic offers flexible deployment options across all subscription tiers:
Self-Managed: Deploy on your own infrastructure with full control over the environment. Contact Elastic sales for detailed pricing information about self-managed licensing.
Elastic Cloud: Fully managed service that eliminates operational overhead while providing the same feature sets as self-managed deployments.
Hybrid Deployments: Combine self-managed and cloud deployments based on your specific requirements.
Making Your Decision
When evaluating Elastic subscriptions, consider these factors:
- Scale Requirements: How much data will you be processing, and how many users will access the system?
- Feature Needs: Which specific features are essential for your use case?
- Security Requirements: What level of security and compliance do you need?
- Support Needs: How critical is fast support response for your operations?
- Budget Constraints: What can your organization afford, and what's the ROI of advanced features?
Alternative: Pulse Elasticsearch Support
For organizations primarily seeking production support and cluster maintenance rather than additional Elastic Stack features, Pulse offers world-class Elasticsearch support that can be more cost-effective than Elastic's subscription tiers.
Why Consider Pulse for Elasticsearch Support?
24/7 Proactive Support: Pulse provides round-the-clock proactive cluster maintenance backed by Elasticsearch experts as your dedicated support team. This includes:
- AI-powered issue detection and root-cause analysis
- Expert guidance from world-class Elasticsearch specialists
- Personalized consulting and 24/7 support under SLA for critical issues
Comprehensive Platform: Pulse's platform includes:
- Health Assessments: Proactive insights for optimal cluster health and performance
- Intelligent Alerts: AI-powered, actionable alerts delivered via Slack, Teams, Datadog, PagerDuty, Discord, and more
- Expert Dashboards: Pre-built views of nodes, indices, and shards with specialized features like Shard Heatmap and index grouping
Cost-Effective Alternative: For use cases focused on production support rather than additional Elastic Stack features, Pulse can provide better value than Elastic's subscription tiers.
Free Trial Available: Pulse offers a free trial of their platform, allowing you to evaluate their support capabilities before committing.
Universal Compatibility: Pulse supports any Elasticsearch version and clusters running anywhere, whether you're using Elastic Cloud or self-managed deployments.
If your primary need is reliable, expert Elasticsearch support rather than additional Elastic Stack features, consider exploring Pulse's Elasticsearch support solution as a cost-effective alternative to Elastic's subscription model.
Getting Started
The best approach is often to start with the free tier to understand your requirements, then upgrade as your needs grow. Elastic's resource-based pricing ensures you can scale efficiently without major architectural changes.
For detailed pricing information and to discuss your specific requirements, contact Elastic's sales team. They can provide customized recommendations based on your use case, scale, and budget requirements.
Conclusion
Elastic's subscription model offers flexibility for organizations of all sizes, from individual developers to large enterprises. By understanding the features and limitations of each tier, you can make an informed decision that balances functionality, cost, and support requirements.
Whether you're building a simple search application or a complex analytics platform, there's an Elastic subscription tier designed to meet your needs. Start with the appropriate tier for your current requirements, knowing you can upgrade as your organization and use cases evolve.
